


Twisted Steel

by enbyboiwonder



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, Canon Relationships, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Insecurity, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 07:02:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17678711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enbyboiwonder/pseuds/enbyboiwonder
Summary: Jack doesn't believe in soulmates, until Mac walks into his life and turns that all on its head.





	Twisted Steel

**Author's Note:**

> Well, it's canon-compliant as far as it fits my timeline, which doesn't exactly match up with canon, but it fits close enough, and also canon kinda really sucks at continuity.
> 
> Anyways, I have no idea what this is or where it came from lmao I churned this out (or the first draft) in about two hours last night instead of going to sleep at a reasonable time.  Thanks go to the lovely Nevcolleil for the beta and the idea for Mac's and Jack's soulmark, which is so much better than what I had originally.

Over sixty percent of the population doesn't have a soulmark, and for twenty-one years, Jack Wyatt Dalton is part of that majority.  He doesn't know the date when it happens, it's just another day on the base, but he'll never forget it afterwards: mid-afternoon on March 23, 1991, he catches himself scratching unconsciously at the inside of his right wrist, and he pushes back his sleeve to see the image of a paper clip bent into the shape of a 45mm bullet standing out dark like ink against his rubbed-red skin.  His unit teases him about being a cradle-robber, and Jack's suddenly glad for the long sleeves.  Though they mean it in jest, playfully nudge him with their elbows and slap him on the back while they wag their eyebrows suggestively just to see him roll his eyes good-naturedly, all he can think is how he's technically old enough to be his soulmate's father.  That they won't want him, that he'd be better off without one at this point.

After he gets tapped for the CIA and starts wearing civvies on a regular basis again, he buys a leather cuff so he isn't stuck wearing long-sleeved shirts year-round.  He doesn't need to, really; that he has a soulmate is in his file, but not when he got one, and no one here knew him then, but it's more for himself than for anyone else.  At first, the unfamiliar weight of the thick band is a heavy reminder that he has a soulmate somewhere out there now, a young, bright thing who deserves far better than him, but he soon grows used to it.  Out of sight, out of mind, as they say.  It's not quite true, but it's true enough that he can almost convince himself that he doesn't have a soulmate, like he's known since he was a kid.

Thirty-five percent never end up meeting their soulmate, anyway.

He dates a bit, but he gets scared, scared for the same reason that he's scared to have a soulmate: that he'll never measure up, never be good enough.  He'll only fuck it up, so he fucks it up on purpose.  It doesn't hurt any less.

Then he fucks up on an op and the Company kicks him out, sends him back to the Army for a tour spent babysitting EOD techs before they turn him loose, and he's done.  He's  _done_ with this special-operative, government-agent business, and he's gonna go back home to Texas as soon as these twelve months are up and never look back.  There ain't nothing that's gonna change his mind.  And it's going swell, until sixty-four days left of his tour and his previous charge has shipped home and he's assigned to supervise one Specialist Angus MacGyver.  He's more drawn to the kid than he has any right to be, uppity little know-it-all EOD tech that he is, and Jack starts to suspect, but it isn't until Mac mentions that he's twenty now, twenty-two days out from when Jack ships back home, that he knows for sure.  He doesn't need to see the guy's mark to know what it is: a paper clip shaped like a 45mm rifle bullet.

What most people don't realize is, just because you're soulmates doesn't mean you'll work out.  Popular media likes to over-romanticize it.  Sometimes, you don't meet at the right time, or life gets in the way.  Jack's father and his first wife were soulmates, but after their daughter was born, their relationship fell apart, and the only way to salvage it was to cut ties.  Then, a few years later, his father met his mother, and though they weren't fated, they fell in love anyway, and they had almost forty happy years of marriage before his father died in '07.  Mac will find someone like that, someone his own age, someone who isn't jaded and isn't damaged and who hasn't killed people and who deserves someone as beautiful and bright and kind as he is, and he'll live happily with them and be none the wiser that he's met the one who shares his mark.  Twenty-two more days, and they'll go their separate ways.  It's for the best.

But Jack can't leave him.  Whichever way you wanna see it, he loves the kid.  He's a poor little bomb nerd with a silly hamburger name, who has trouble multitasking and doesn't always pay as much attention to his surroundings as he should and is probably the slowest EOD tech alive, but he's passionate and strong-willed and whip-smart and gives back as good as he gets, and he's probably the best thing to happen to Jack since he walked away from the Davises three years ago, and Jack doesn't trust anyone else to look after him.  He absently rubs his thumb over his soulmark, trying to convince himself of what he already knows, but his heart ain't in it, and he turns around and marches right back off that transport and signs up for another tour, under the condition that he's paired with Mac.  When he sees how Mac's eyes light up, how he fair as shines with joy to see him get into that humvee, Jack knows he's made the right decision.  Just because he can't have him doesn't mean he can't watch over him.

They join DXS together, and they save each other's lives more times than he can count, and Mac saves everyone's lives practically on a monthly basis, and if Jack didn't already owe him a Wookiee life debt, he sure as hell does now.  He thinks that Mac knows that his leather cuff isn't just a fashion statement, but he never asks, and Jack never brings it up, not even when Nikki shows up with a pretty flowery thing on the back of her hand like some kind of henna tattoo.  He kind of regrets that, when all she ends up doing is breaking Mac's heart, but Jack's there for him through it, there to distract him from her at least a little and to make sure the trust issues don't become permanent and to help him move on.

Jack almost minds losing his leather cuff to that teenager in Chernobyl more than he does losing Beowulf, but they're in the middle of an op, and he's sure that no one notices his mark between then and the radiation suits, and between the radiation suits and changing into a fresh and thankfully long-sleeved shirt from his go-bag, so losing Beowulf still stings a little more despite Mac's promise to get him a new one.  They sleep through most of the plane ride back to Phoenix, and he and Mac end up at Mac's place after they get home early the next morning.  Jack immediately flops down on the couch, but Mac says,  _I want to show you something,_ and is already pulling his henley off over his head and turning to present his back to Jack before Jack can even process what he said.

His breath catches in his throat when he sees the mark on the back of Mac's neck, just to the right of his spine and far enough down as to be easily hidden by a shirt collar.  It's exactly what he knew it would be, that fateful February all those years ago.  He stands to get a better look, drawn forward by the want he's aching with, but he only allows himself to rest a hand lightly, reverently on Mac's shoulder and rub his thumb over the mark just as he's done countless times with his own.  Mac shivers.   _I saw yours in Chernobyl,_ he says, turning back around to face him.  Jack lets his hand fall to his side, but Mac catches it, pushes down the sleeve so he can trace his thumb along the lines of the steel-wire bullet on the inside of Jack's wrist.  He says,  _I'd hoped it was you,_ flicking his eyes up to meet Jack's, looking at him like he's everything, like he's not broken and like the fact that he's killed before and will again doesn't matter and like maybe, just maybe, he does deserve to hold this light in his hands, like nothing he could do could ever put it out, and when Mac reaches up with one hand to cup his cheek and kiss him softly, Jack lets himself believe it.


End file.
